The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 37

I 'COLONELS' RESTORE WWII Air Force With Time PLANES Machines (K What men and machines they were. What a time it teas fT Iutriptloi kaofar will it I CeeMenU Air Frt beUqurten BY CHARLES HILLINGER Times Stall Writer HARUNGEN, props revved and black smoke poured out of the World War II bombers and fighters. A B-29 Superfortress, B-24 Liberator. B-17 Flying Fortress, P-51 Mustang and P-40 Curtiss Warhawk roared down the runway and flew off. It is turn-back-the-clock, nostalgia time every day at this old World War II Army Air Corps base in the Lower Rio Grande Valley at the bottom tip of Texas, home of the Confederate Air Force.

The CAF, the official air force of the state of Texas, with 89 35-to-40-year-old airplanes, is the 15th largest operational air force on earth. They call it the Ghost Squadron. It's the most complete collection of flyable World War II combat aircraft in existence. It's the only air force whose members buy their way in, buy the aircraft they fly and pay the cost of restoration, maintenance and fuel out of their own pockets. And, everyone in the outfit pilots, copilots, flight engineers, crew chiefs, navigators, bombardiers, gunners and mechanics is of equal rank.

Everyone in the Confederate Air Force is a colonel. It's an air force of 5,000 colonels from 50 states and 21 foreign countries. The colonels sport CAF wings on their lapels and wear Confederate gray CAF uniforms. They come from all walks of life. Prince Philip of Eng- land is a CAF colonel, so is Bob Hope, Sen.

Barry Goldwater and Joe Engle. a NASA space shuttle pilot. The majority of CAF colonels flew the World War II airplanes or were crew members or mechanics. All the CAF colonels are of single mind to acquire, preserve and maintain in flying condition military aircraft of the 1939-1945 vintage. The Confederate Air Force is the brainstorm of Lloyd Nolen, 56, a Texas crop-duster who was a pilot in World War II.

He and four other "dusters" organized the CAF in 1957. At the time, World War planes were being systematically melted into scrap. Nolen and his colleagues bought a P-51 Mustang in the early 1950's. Each crop-duster had an equal share in the plane. They restored it and took turns flying it.

One day someone no one will admit to knowing who painted the words "CONFEDERATE AIR FORCE" on the tail of the Mustang. "Just for the hell of it we called ourselves the Confederate Air Force a one-plane air force." Nolen said. Later the four "dusters" bought a Navy F-8F Bearcat. "Then we decided to acquire and preserve in flving condition one each of the U.S. fighters of World War II." he said.

"We were off and running. Soon we were adding bombers, trainers and transports," Nolen said. CAF members pay a S25 initiation fee, S125 in annual dues and are commissioned colonels taking an oath "to Nolen with CAF's World War II German Heinkel light bomber in Texas. Time photo by Charle Hillinger mm jli Eos Angeles Slimes Part l-B FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1979 VOLUNTEERS Don Dyer, left, imiJt Ld JLmX n55 few It i -mtinim preserve, protect, maintain and restore World War II combat aircraft and keep them flying." "Membership entitles them to buy CAF Confederate gray uniforms. 2nd CAF wings and to have all the fun colonels can possibly have." said Ed Moran.

editor of the CAF magazine. Confederate Air Force Dispatch. Colonels wishing to become crew members of one of the 89 World War II planes pay an additional $350. Crew members fly in from all over the world throughout the year, many spending vacations volunteering their time to restore, service and maintain the World War II aircraft. Milt Connell, 60.

is in one of the three huge World War II CAF hangars at Harlingen practically every day, working on the planes as a CAF crew member. CAF sponsor and CAF pilot. Connell, retired president of a steel company, has contributed 150.000 to the organization toward the purchase, restoration and maintenance of a Douglas A-20 Havoc, a low-level attack bomber, and to sponsor the CAF's B-29 Superfortress. He and Max Gardner, a retired Frontier Air Lines pilot, have spent the last eight years rebuilding the A-20. "Max and I bought it.

paid for all the expenses of restoring the A-20 and will be flying it for the Confederate Air Force at air shows in various parts of the country beginning in a few months," Connell said. A World War II pilot. Connell and George Garrett with B-29. paign would seem to be operating with a handicap. During his term in office, the name Cleveland has become synonymous with crisis.

It became the first major American city since the Great Depression to default on its loans and has been forced to raise local income taxes to make ends meet. Kucinich has been shunned by most of the leaders of his own Democratic Party, many of whom have endorsed Voinovich. The GOP candidate has outspent the incumbent by more than 2 to 1 during the campaign. And, most importantly, the numbers all point to a Voinovich victory. Although no polls have been completed, figures from the Oct.

2 "nonpartisan" primary indicate that the mayor is not the most popular man in town. Kucinich netted only 29 of the vote in the five-man race, enough for second place and to earn him a spot in the runoff with Voinovich, who gathered 38. But, because all four of Kucinich's opponents made his performance in office the prime issue in the race, the figures would seem to indicate that seven out of 10 voters preferred someone other than the incumbent. Furthermore, Voinovich did better than expected among blacks, who make up nearly 40 of the population. Kucinich, strongly backed by busing foes and accused of distributing racist literature in the primary, did poorly among blacks, a fact that has led him to gear his campaign toward the black community.

He is running television commercials featuring black supporters such as Carl Stokes, former mayor and now a New York TV newsman, and heavyweight boxing champion Larry Holmes. Although conventional wisdom says Kucinich will lose the contest, this is not a city from which people expect the conventional. As one veteran political observer put it recently, "If you're looking for reason or logic, you'll never understand what's going on here." Although he went without the backing of Democratic leaders in 1977, Kucinich survived both his primary and general election contests, becoming the youngest leader of a major city in U.S. history. Little more than a quarter of the way through the term, he narrowly won a recall election.

Last February, voters unexpec- SERVICING A SUPERFORTRESS-CAF Cleveland Election Reflects City Unusual Is Usual as Kucinich Faces Tough Challenge GOP Progress in Mississippi May Be Facing a Setback Republicans Had Hoped to Elect New Governor but Democrats Look Stronger in Tuesday Vote BY KENNETH REICH Times Political Writer FOUNDER Crop-duster Lloyd echoes the sentiments of all CAF colonels. "I am having the time of my life. These planes represent a fascinating period of U.S. history." Nearly 200 CAF colonels have paid a minimum of $3,500 each to be sponsors of one of the old fighters, bombers, trainers or transports. Michael Wansey, an Australian newspaper publisher, is one of the CAF sponsors.

Two months ago Wansey found a World War II PBY in private hands. He paid $170,000 for it and donated the PBY to the Confederate Air Force. "The PBY played a key role in keeping the Japanese from invading Australia during World War II." Wansey said. "My father worked at a PBY base in Australia during the war. Donating the PBY to the Confederate Air Force, a living, flying museum of World War II planes, is my way of expressing thanks to the United States for the defense of Australia." Wansey 's PBY will be painted in the colors of the Royal Australian Navy when it is officially phased into the Ghost Squadron of the Confederate Air Force.

Some of the sponsors donate money for sentimental reasons. One gave $5,000 in memory of his brother, who was killed during the war in the type of plane he was sponsoring. CAF planes have been salvaged from the jungles of the Pacific islands, from the Burma Hump and in scores of other places where the planes made forced landings during the war and were forgotten. Planes have been found in Central and South America. Spain.

Africa, the Middle East. The CAF's B-29 Superfortress sat out in the sand and wind of the Mo-jave Desert at China Lake, for Please Turn to Page 2, Col. 1 INCUMBENT Mayor Dennis Kucinich after vote in primary. AP photo tedly backed Kucinich by voting to keep the municipal electric plant, the sale of which had been demanded by a powerful coalition of banks, business leaders and the majority of the City Council as a prerequisite to a financial "get-well" program for the city. As in this year's primary battle, the key issue in the general election contest is Kucinich's personality.

People either love him or hate him. In the world of Dennis Kucinich, who fashions himself as a modern-day version of an early 20th-century populist, everybody is either a good guy or a bad guy, an underdog or a fatcat. It's "them" against "us." To Kucinich, "them" includes the big banks and businesses he has fought and criticized throughout his term. It also includes Voinovich, a corporate lawyer who would be a puppet of the moneyed interests of the community, Kucinich contends. "I'm fighting the most incredible money machine ever put together for a political race here," Kucinich says.

"His (Voinovich's) money is coming from individuals who don't necessarily want peace at City, Hall, they want a piece of City Hall." He claims the city's money woes have been brought on by the financial mismanagement of his predecessors and would be much worse if he had not been on the scene to act as a buf Please Turn to Page 2, Col. 1 Cols. Malcolm Russell, left, arrested for displaying his bare bottom out of the window of a moving car. This is also the town of Mayor Dennis J. Kucinich, one of the most brash, controversial and unorthodox politicians to hit the national scene in years.

Kucinich, who at 32 and after only two years in office has survived more near calamities than most officeholders do in a lifetime, finds himself at the brink once again. On Nov. 6, voters in this overwhelmingly Democratic, blue-collar city of 600,000 will decide whether to retain the feisty Kucinich for another two-year term as mayor, or to replace him with the quieter, more accommodating George V. Voi-novich, Ohio's 43-year-old Republican lieutenant governor. On the surface, the Kucinich cam- PROFILESFEATURES and Milt Connell work on planes.

tion. He publicly supported the 1964, 1965 and 1967 federal civil rights acts. For a long time, Winter, a moderate on most issues, was regarded as too liberal on race to ever win a Democratic gubernatorial primary. He failed in bids to do so in 1967 and 1975, but this year he swept to a surprise victory in the primary over Lt. Gov.

Evelyn Gandy, getting 57 of the vote. Historically, in Mississippi politics, when one major candidate has been liberal on civil rights or racial issues, the other has capitalized on it by assuming a racist position. But not Carmichael. In fact, he too is openly appealing for the sizable black vote in a state that still has the largest proportion of black population (about 39 of any state in the union. The Republican candidate recently pledged to "open up the economic system to black citizens." promised to name a black to a top position in his administration and said he would name a black to the all-white Mississippi Health Care Commission.

One result is that a leading expert here on black voting patterns, Rims Barber, predicts that Carmichael may get 30 of the black vote, while the Democrat may get 70. But another result is that the Republican is having a hard time distinguishing himself from the Democrat. Carmichael declares, "I want to be the businessman governor," hoping to remind voters both of his own success in parlaying a $5,000 initial investment into a $3 million automobile business and of the experience of neighboring Alabama, where a businessman, Democrat Forrest (Fob) James, was elected governor last year, and has turned out to be a popular success. He has also tried to raise a few questions about Winter's past record, suggesting that as a bond attorney in Jackson he may have been doing business with the state and that as state tax collector he earned too much in commissions collecting the state's bootleg liquor tax years ago. Carmichael's problem is that few doubt Winter's integrity.

It has been Please Turn to Page 2, Col. 1 BT BOB SECTER Times Staff Writer CLEVELAND-Where would the outcome of a hotly contested election battle possibly hinge on the pronouncements of an out-of-town TV newscaster and a prizefighter? Where, would a candidate the champion of white, antibusing forces spend most of his campaign hours courting black votes? Where would the mayor of a major American city be facing his sixth critical election battle in only two years? Where else? Cleveland. People have learned to look on Cleveland as a place where the unusual is usual. After all, this is the town where rivers have caught on fire, where a former mayor set his hair ablaze with a blowtorch, and where the school board president was JACKSON, the Republican Party, which has been making slow, painstaking progress over the years in this Deep South state, next Tuesday's gubernatorial election looms as a major disappointment. At the beginning, this looked like the year the GOP was to finally elect a governor and the year that, in major offices at least, Mississippi would become a Republican state.

But as has often been the case for the GOP in the South, things have turned out to be not so simple. In a surprise, the Democrats came up with a man who is widely recognized as an outstanding candidate. And this year, most of the state's usually independent-minded blacks are supporting him. The Republican candidate, a Meridian automobile dealer named Gil Carmichael, 52, bas run respectably in two previous statewide elections. He received 45 of the vote in the last gubernatorial election four years ago.

And he is running just a year after Mississippi elected its first Republican U.S. senator in 98 years, Thad Cochran. But with Democrat William Winter, 56, as his opponent, Carmichael has had trouble figuring out how to campaign. Even his main commercial pays a sort backhanded compliment to Winter, calling him "one of the best of the old political crowd." And Carmichael's effort has been set back by squabbling within Republican ranks. A number of hard-line backers of Ronald Reagan in the last presidential campaign have opposed his candidacy because Carmichael, a moderate, backed President Gerald R.

Ford in 1976. Winter, a former lieutenant governor, lawyer and historian, has probably the most liberal record on civil rights of any Democrat who has ever run in the general election for governor. In 1960, he backed John F. Kennedy for President. Two years later, he publicly endorsed the entry of the first black student, James Meredith into the University of Mississippi at a time when virtually the entire state leadership was opposed to desegrega Veil 'I'HMaMMBMHfllMHHIHMMMMHHnMUHMHMIMMMMIMIMMMaMNIMIIM CHALLENGER George V.

Voinovich gestures to his supporters. AP photo.